Money Reasons

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Archive for July, 2010

Money Weekly Cache 2010, July 18

July 18th, 2010

Weekly Thoughts:

Summer is going quickly. It’s been pretty good so far, from an entertainment stand point, it’s been great. From a getting things done around the house, it’s hardly going at all.

I still have some big things on my list to do, but I’d rather do the family enjoyment tasks first!

My Favorite Reads of the Week:

Young and Thrifty: Don’t Succumb to Lifestyle Inflation - I’m currently fighting a battle with Lifestyle Inflation, so Young’s article really hits at home!

Invest It Wisely: Living to 100 and Beyond: Building an Infinite Portfolio - I agree with this articles and would like to create one myself!

Early Retirement Extreme: How I became financially independent in 5 years – Part 1 - Jacob’s going to explain how he did it!

My Favorite Post from Money Reasons:

My favorite post this week is: Sometimes Getting Exactly What You Want Isn’t The Best Experience - Sometimes getting what we want isn’t always best!

Closing Thoughts:

I decided to keep this weeks “Weekly Cache” short! I’ve been very busy lately! Are you taking full advantage of summer? If not, consider doing so… after all, time goes way too quickly!

-MR

3 comments »

Posted in Weekly Review

Goldman Sachs Settles Their Case For 550 Million

July 16th, 2010

What a strange world we live in, on yahoo’s site, they wrote that Goldman has settled the US lawsuit for a bit more than 1/2 a billion dollars.

IMHO, the US government is one of the better ones, and yet they extort companies for money. Changing the business rules in the game mid-stream, ignoring the deals made with the better banks during the financial crisis… Acting like they (the banks) are some simple portray of a nemisis (what a joke or the joker) to the world.

Painting pictures of them as the bad guys and the government as the good guys. Casting blame like they (the government) are as clean as clean can be, ignoring their legislation that help make the problems, or perhaps even the primary root of the problems.

I think representatives in government are forgetting poor laws (and lawsuits) make a society poor (and not just in the financial sense).

I think if the government really thought Goldman Sachs did wrong (which I don’t think they did, click here to read my writeup on it), then why settle? I think because they knew that their case was flawed, but either way they still get money from Goldman. Plus, they had nothing to lose really… it would just cost us the tax payers if they lost.

So are such lawsuits a form of additional taxation against profitable successful companies? I ask this because the government didn’t go after the companies that would have had problems with such lawsuits, even though they caused most of the damage… Goldman was a survivor and successful at that, so did they charge Goldman Sachs a success (or survivor) tax disguised in the form of a lawsuit?

Readers, what do you think?

-MR

1 comment »

Posted in Problems

Tags: bad government Goldman Settles government lawsuits

Losing Control To Lifestyle Inflation

July 14th, 2010

Today, my wife and I sent the kids to a friends house for a sleep over, while we went to a fancy italian winery/villa style restaurant. For just the 2 of us, the experience cost $120.00 dollars!

So what did we have to eat, you might be wondering? My meal consisted of antipasta salad, sea scallops and red wine (Tuscano). My wife’s meal consisted of steak, antipasta salad, rose wine and a small piece of cake.

Travel back in time 10 years ago, and I would have never paid for such a meal. It would be way to expensive for me back then. Even today, I can’t afford to have meals like this often! Believe it or not, this is the most I’ve spent on a meal for the both of us.

So you might be thinking it’s a special occassion, but it really wasn’t. It was just a new restaurant that we decided to try out. We could have ordered the much cheaper pizza, but we wanted to see if this restaurant was as good as we heard it was. So we ordered more expensive meals (but not the most expensive)! The next time we go, we’re going for the pizza!!!

This is called Lifestyle Inflation, and it’s basically where we increase our upper range of spending whereas before we would never conceive of spending so much for such a temporary thing as a meal!

Maybe it is just a one time splurge, but maybe not! I definitely need to get a better grip around my spending or else I’ll doom myself to never have any wealth someday!

-MR

16 comments »

Posted in Entertainment

Tags: controlling costs expensive restaurant lifestyle inflation

Sometimes Getting Exactly What You Want Isn't The Best Experience

July 14th, 2010

The experience was almost like this... relaxing...

Today, the weather forecast stated that althought the day was very cloudy, There was only a 30% chance of rain. It was hot and humid, so logically even though it’s not sunny, it’s still a good way to cool off and have some fun with my son.

So I thought “hmmm, this is almost the middle of the week, we’ll go wave running early, beating the crowd (which should be less than typical since it looks like it might rain).” I thought what a great idea!!!

Well, my idea worked a little too well. Hardly anyone was out on the lake at all (I think I counted… maybe 5 boats). It was eerie! It kind of felt like the lake was closed and we were intruders that shouldn’t have been there. With the clouds darkening the day, I expected a lot of bug to be over the lake, but luckily they weren’t!

So, as I claimed once we were in the water… We owned the lake that day! But you know what? It wasn’t as fun as I thought it would be.

The following are the Reasons that our time was less than optimal:

The lack of sunlight made it feel very strange!
The lake was so calm, there weren’t any waves to jump over and ride on. This is half of the fun of wave running.
No people watching (albeit a brief encounter at best on the wave runners anyway, but still…).
Kind of lame experience, like singing in the shower… Nice but not like singing in front of other people (not that I can sing, blah).

It’s funny, how the almost total lack of people made wave running such a so so experience. Surprisingly, a lot of things in life are similar to my experience with wave running and nobody being there.

Was it worth it? Yeah, but it could have been better!

What do you think? Have you planned something, then with the lack of background noise or other people, realized the experience wasn’t quite a good as with that noise or people?

-MR

6 comments »

Posted in Experiment

Tags: boring wave running empty lake jet skis wave runners wave running

By Percentage, The Rich Are Now The Number 1 Mortgage Defaulters

July 13th, 2010

According to this New York Times article: (Click here to read), the following is taking place:

More than one in seven homeowners with loans in excess of a million dollars are seriously delinquent, according to data compiled for The New York Times by the real estate analytics firm CoreLogic.

The article goes on to say that only 1 in 12 below the million dollar mark is deliquent!

Okay, so perhaps the rich aren’t out on the streets… In fact, usually it’s a 2nd home or a rental property that they are delinquent with the payment…

The article states that the Rich are more ruthless. Actually first, I’m sure if “us, less than rich folks” had a 2nd house or rental property, we would consider unloading it too, especially if we were losing money on it.

Second, I think since the government is attacking this social class, they no longer feel obligated to do what is best for the economy or government. After all, they are being secretly or blatantly (depending on your viewpoint), attacked from the government. So why care, since they are being view as the bad guys anyway.

Mostly, I think they see it as a bad investment that no longer makes sense though.

I initially was going to write this post around the fact that strategic defaulters are bad, and I would take the high road and stick it out. But, since the 2nd home or rental property is really an investment… Now, I’m not so sure! I would like to think I’d do the right thing, but they are losing money on these investment, and the government is kicking them while they are losing that money…

Readers, what would you do if you have a 2nd home or rental property in a place like Las Vegas (where the value of homes have practically halved)?

-MR

10 comments »

Posted in Mortgages

Tags: rich defaulters strategic defaulters